In the diversified art environment in modern Taiwan, traditional arts involve and are associated with the historicalmemories and unique value of Taiwan itself. Moreover, performing arts should be constantly reexhibited, as it notonly reveals the historical context of culture, but also involves the characteristics of a given specific moment.Therefore, at the moment when an exhibition activity is held or even during the earlier prepreparation period of a reexhibition,a specific historical product is also exhibited and it is integrated with modern cultural fragments.Traditional performing arts tend to gradually pass away with time, yet some of them work out a mechanism to adapt;however, some of the artistic types obtain the opportunity to recreate themselves during the “modernization”process. Various traditional performing arts have experienced differently in this part of history and eventually areintegrated with each other as a unique modern feature of the arts and humanities in Taiwan.
New and old local traditional performing arts concurrently exist in Taiwan. They also involve the cultural experiencespenetrated by the cultures of different ethnic groups in Taiwan and the cultural traditions of specific populations. Atthe current stage, ethnic relations can be divided into Han culture with the population and culture of indigenouspeoples. Take the example of the indigenous people’s singing and dancing, which are performed on specificfestivals and ceremonies, not only do they have different traditions in different tribes, but also feature the spatialhumanity and their relationships with specific rituals. Taking the performing arts tradition of the Han people asanother example, the local traditional performing arts in Taiwan can be roughly divided into three categoriesaccording to performance forms and organizational features: xiqu, music, and folk performance. Xiqu can be furtherdivided into peoplebased xiqu and traditional puppetry. Folk performance usually involves, to a certain extent, plotsor drama. Moreover, most of the performances are combined with music. Such is the case with the performance ofLion Formation or SongJiang Formation, for which only percussion music is used as accompaniment.
The aforementioned major categories originated from the tradition of performing arts in the culture of the Han people.The phenomenon by means of which opera culture penetrates other categories/fields of performing arts can befrequently found. For example, the culture of amateur music clubs used to be common in folk societies in Taiwan. Theformation of an orchestra is the most common performance mode in such amateur performing organizations. Whatperformers actually learned usually involves the musical insights of various operas. For example, the “Four MajorClubs” of Nanmen Li Chuen Yuan in Changhua were known as the leaders of amateur performances of Beiguan(Luantan Opera) for a long period of time. The amateur music clubs of Nanguan performed in both popular style andelegant style, and even maintained a degree of closeness with specific xiqu in their performances. Therefore, suchclubs were divided into Tung Clubs, Ping Clubs, and Kaochia (Chiaochia) Clubs. In addition, because the postwartrend of adolescents in the Hakka villages in northern Taiwan during this same period was to learn Hakka Bayin,they also referred to the diversified performance content of occupational Bayin orchestras at the time to introduceBeiguan, Teapicking Opera, and Hakka hill songs into their performance activities.
In the 1930s, Cantonese music also became popular in Taiwan, which laid the initial foundation for the developmentof postwar Chinese orchestras. Many folk musicians still tended to identify Chinese orchestral music as Cantonesemusic or Han music until the end of the 20 century.
Xiqu arts, especially the xiqu which can still be performed in modern Taiwan, such as Beiguan (Luantan Opera),Nanguan (Li Yuan Opera), Taiwanese Opera, Teapicking Opera, Beijing Opera, and Henan Bangzi Opera, havetheir distinctive music for voices or backstage music system. Taking Taiwanese Opera and Teapicking Opera asexamples, these two were originated from the mountain songs of Minnan and Hakka immigrants. Performers in theearly 20 century tried to develop and participate in commercial opera which came into being at that time. Suchcommercial opera was initially a combination of songs and the simple singing & dancing of folk performance withvarious accompaniment and incidental music of other grand operas at the time, and was eventually expanded to anewlydeveloping grand opera.
Peoplebased operas have different opera categories, and so does traditional puppetry in Taiwan. The traditionalpuppetry in Taiwan comprises at least three categories: glove puppetry, string puppetry, and shadow puppetry.According to the music of voices used in them or the phenomenon of backstage accompaniment, the tradition ofincidental music of traditional puppetry derives from the adoption of the music of grand opera.About Us What We Do What's New Resource Center Cultural Features Taiwan AcademyNewsletterSite Map中文版日本語About Cinema Literature TraditionalPerforming Arts Fine Arts ResourcesththSearchHome FAQsPrint Forward L 0 Text size:ikeIn the case of limited personal and noncommercial purposes and that users may intellectual property law related specifications , freely browse and use this site , or downloadexpressly provided on this website to download the relevant information, but please indicate the source . To respect the intellectual property rights of unauthorized use , for referenceinformation on this website can be made to this site contact , or direct contact with the copyright holders.